London's getting noisy again - seen the news yet?

A car bomb planted in central London would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded, police say.
A controlled explosion was carried out on the car, packed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, in Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus.

An ambulance crew saw smoke coming from the green Mercedes, near the Tiger Tiger nightclub at 0130BST (030GMT).

London's Park Lane was later cordoned off while a suspicious vehicle was investigated.

Scotland Yard, Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur urged people to be "alert and vigilant" and to report any suspicions to the police.

Disruption would be kept to a minimum, he said, although the police were reviewing the safety of a number of big public events set to take place in the capital over the weekend.

"I want to reassure Londoners that we are doing everything possible to make them safe," he added.

Earlier, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said that Park Lane was closed at Marble Arch to Hyde Park Corner and a 200m cordon was in place.

See map of where device was found
Sources close to the investigation said the Park Lane closure was linked to the discovery of a vehicle at an underground car park. A police robot was being used to investigate the vehicle.

"International elements" were believed to be involved with the Haymarket bomb, Whitehall sources told the BBC.

Nightclubbers

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, said: "It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life."

The ambulance had been called to the nightclub - where up to 1,700 people were inside - when they spotted smoke, now believed to be vapour, inside the car.

It is obvious that if the device had detonated there could have been serious injury or loss of life

Scotland Yard declined to comment on reports that a mobile phone was found in the Mercedes that may have been intended to trigger the explosion.

One report claimed that a quick-thinking officer disconnected the mobile phone before bomb squad officers arrived.

Mobile phones have been used to detonate bombs in Iraq and Indonesia and in other terror attacks, such as the 2004 Madrid bombings.

The car bomb has echoes of other terrorist plots. Five men were jailed for life in April for a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda that targeted a shopping centre and a nightclub with a giant fertiliser bomb.

And Dhiren Barot was jailed for life last November for conspiring to park limousines packed with gas canisters underneath high-profile buildings before detonating them.

The Muslim Council of Britain, the largest organisation representing Muslim groups in the UK, urged people to help the police find the perpetrators.

Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, said: "It is now a duty upon all the rest of us to help the police so that they can bring whoever was involved in this plot swiftly to justice".

Alert

Speaking in Downing Street after a private meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the new Home Office minister for security, Admiral Sir Alan West, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith urged members of the public to report anything suspicious to the police.